My dream project.. restoring an oak roll top desk

[Yorkshire Sam]

For many years I have always wanted a roll top desk. I remember seeing one in a pursers office as a child and have been fascinated in them ever since. It’s only been in last 6 years since I retired that I have been actively looking to get one. I have seen a few in auctions and antique shops but they have always been either too expensive or more often been seen while I am a couple of hundred miles away from home and shipping costs make them prohibitive. I have followed quite a few on ebay where they usually are for collection only and invariably at the other end of the country. I finally found one on ebay which was in my home village in Durham only a mile or so down the road, I could not believe it. It was in a bit of state but I had to have it.

As it was quite filthy, encrusted with dirt from years of dust and wear, my first task was to give it a wash down and examine it closely to see what I could find out about it. The finish had been broken in several places with a large water stain on the top. It must have been left outside at some stage because some of the ‘bare’ patches are grey.

There are several bits missing, including the modesty screen between the draws, No keys for the tambour or draw, the drawer locking system inside the housing had been removed, a handle was missing from one of the drawers and it looked like the handles to the centre draw had been replace by some rather crudely made ones which looked obviously out of place.

Fortunately most of the joints are still sound, a couple of minor cracks in panels, and one or two places missing chips of wood. The dovetails on the draws are machine made and still firm and all the draw bottoms and panel appear to be oak and not plywood. Its obviously old but its not an expensive antique! Its amazing how many of them are still around!

I decided that I will do it up and try to return it to its former glory for my own benefit. I have some old oak in my garage for replacement parts and a bit of research is needed to see how to they were originally made and how the parts fit. Its going to be interesting. Watch this space!

 

[monkeybiter]

Watching intently.

 

[Newbie_Neil]

What a wonderful project, looking forward to the wip.

Neil

 

[MusicMan]

Also watching with great interest. You may be interested in my experience restoring an 18th C oak bureau:

georgian-bureau-restoration-finished-t106072.html

I understand the ambition. My grandfather had a magnificent roll top desk presented to him when he retired as headmaster of Bynea School (near Llanelli) in about 1910. I have always been really pineappled off that it ended up with a cousin who put it in the shed to store paint tins till it deteriorated beyond repair!

BTW I found the mixture of turpentine + meths in equal parts plus a dash of vinegar very good for cleaning up grimy oak without ruining the patina. Followed by wax.

I'm sure you'll enjoy the project, as shall we.

 

[DTR]

Watching along

 

[Yorkshire Sam]

Having cleaned and dismantled the desk and done a bit of research, I am now a little wiser on several things my this desk.

While most of the wood (oak) is sound, a lot of the finish is really too far gone to do much with. I have determined that it’s a coloured varnish of some kind, which is really very rough in areas, and there are patches of some kind of mould in several areas that are going to need attention. I reckon its going to take more effort to restore and refinish (with no guarantee of acceptable finish) than it is to strip and start again. Beside the mould and the water stain on the top are too deep to get rid of without stripping. Beside this is oak and the patches of bare wood that I have cleaned show it got a nice finish ( or will have eventually), the varnish does a good job of masking it totally!
I can already hear the howls of protest but as I said at the beginning I don’t think this is a valuable antique and beside its for me, I have no intention of ever selling it.

I think that the centre draw is a marriage. There a couple of reason for this, first the handles are rather crudely made and don’t match. The wood for the sides of the draws and the front are different from the rest of the drawers ( see the attached photos). Also the base of the drawer is ply where all the drawers have oak bases. Finally on the front sides of the pedestals there are holes for dowels (similar to the modesty board at the rear) for some kind of cross brace (see photo below) and the sides of the drawer cover these holes so no brace is possible. There is no receiving slot for the lock under the tabletop…

The question I ask myself .. do I strip before I start any repairs/replacement. While there are a few bits that need to be made that won’t need finishing (inside pedestals for instance). What finish do I use? I am leaning towards blond shellac. I like shellac finishes and think that the beauty of the oak wood needs to be seen and valued. I am not a great fan of varnishes. I don’t particularly want a shiny finish and will probably wax it afterwards. I would welcome your advice.

I am also going to have to try to make a key for the tambour. A new lock a roll top runs at around £50 and includes the escutcheon, and plate but I already have theses and new key blank runs at about £5… I have researched this and its not that difficult to make a key for one ( I will let you know!).

Unfortunately I have yet to find anything on drawer locking system except for a rather complicated patent drawing which I don't think would be applicable. So its more research. Any help would be gratefully recieved.

Watch this space!

 

[AndyT]

Unfortunately I have yet to find anything on drawer locking system except for a rather complicated patent drawing which I don't think would be applicable. So its more research. Any help would be gratefully recieved.

Watch this space!

Didn't you see the diagrams I posted in your other thread?

topic107406.html

 

[Hot stuff]

Sorry Sam, I thought that Andys diagram would have let you see the set up you needed. That's pretty much the way they all work but I'll take photos of mine for you if you want.
I thought your centre drawer was a replacement, totally different colour as well as the handles, mine was missing altogether on the last one I did. I made a new one and replaced all the handles.
I used a Colron satin varnish/stain, dark oak if I remember, which is actually a nice mid brown colour and the satin finish leaves it looking not too obviously re-finished.
The modesty panel is handy to have as well, keeps the thing square when it's all screwed together.

 

[MusicMan]

I simply dyed (Vandyke Brown crystals) to the colour (obtained by dilution) I wanted, using this step to even out any patchy bits, then wax over.

 

[SteveF]

what a fantastic project
looking forward to this

Steve

 

[Yorkshire Sam]

Unfortunately I have yet to find anything on drawer locking system except for a rather complicated patent drawing which I don't think would be applicable. So its more research. Any help would be gratefully recieved.

Watch this space!

Didn't you see the diagrams I posted in your other thread?

topic107406.html

Thanks for that, for some reason I missed this. I will study this a bit more and am sure I can make something similar.

 

[Yorkshire Sam]

It took a while just cleaning the grime off this desk. It must have had many years of solidified dust on it in every crack and cranny of which there are many. The guy who I got the desk off told me that he had bought it at in auction in York over a year ago and it had been sat in his garage ever since. Like me he had the intention of restoring it but decided that it needed far too much work and had too many missing parts. He is obviously not as stupid as me!

It really is quite a lump of furniture and my wife said she would only allow it in the house if it was much lighter. And so I decided that with along with all the other problems with the finish, stripping it was the way to go. I am going to finish this with blond shellac eventually as I know this will give me the finish that I want (ie a light oak). And I think it really enhances the wood too. It will probably get a couple of coats of wax too eventually, but that will be for much later.

I started on the desktop first as this had the least problems. Dismantling was relatively simple as the ‘desktop’ was attached by screws onto the sides and back and this also allowed the tambour to be removed and treated separately. Fortunately the canvas backing on the tambour was sound.

I used varnish remover and a nylon scouring pad to get rid of the old varnish and finish, often requiring repeated applications to get rid of it all, and over a week managed to get the whole desk stripped and back to bare wood. The mouldings were similarly treated and sometimes had to resort to using wire wool. It also had some mould, mostly on the back and fortunately this responded well to mould remover. After allowing it to all to dry it needed a good sanding, especially on some of the ‘greyer’ areas, to bring the whole desk into a more even finish.

On the top of the desk was a large water stain, which took some time and a mixture of sanding and acid treatment to remove. I initially tried oxalic but this seemed to make it worse. Citric acid finally did the trick and now its gone.

While the desk was drying from this treatment, There was a couple of areas that needed some other treatment. On the desktop someone has crudely carved a spiders web. This too had to go, not only was it hideous but it was right on the area of the desk where I would be doing most of my writing. The careful use of a cabinet scraper and sanding did the trick without leaving any obvious ‘hollow’. Then I turned to the groove for the tambour. This was full of dirt and grime and made the top sliding action very rough. Carefully using a 3/8th chisel as a scraper I managed to clean out the whole groove without removing any of the wood and its now clean and bright and the tambour slides much easier.

Before reassembling the parts, I treated each area with 2 coats of shellac, and then a light sanding before the third coat. I then reassemble the desk. Because there was so many parts I had to keep a note of which areas had been treated and how many coats they have had. I will eventually give it a couple more coats spread over a few days after I have finished all the other work that is going to need doing.

Then I turned to the task of making three handles, one for the missing ‘dummy’ draw and two for the middle draw to replace the rather crudely made one. Regretfully I no longer have a router and so the handles where made using a combination of carving and sanding, but I am satisfied with the result.

The desk, while assembled is not actually fixed as yet. The top is just sat on the pedestals, located by a couple of dowels, but is quite stable. There are holes for screws under the desktop and once the modesty panel is replaced this will add much rigidity to the whole assembly. But as I have work to do on the drawers and pedestals there is no point in fixing it yet.

So far I am quite pleased with the progress even though there is still a lot to do.

 

[thetyreman]

love what you've done so far, the shellac is doing its thing, makes it look far more expensive, and I prefer the natural colour much more, the handles are a nice touch. =D>

 

[AndyT]

That looks really satisfying.
I used to have an old oak office desk, probably of similar vintage, which had also been coated with that dark brown gunge. I too stripped it back to the underlying golden colour and it was much nicer for it.

I know that the components were not originally matched for grain and figure, but even so, it's much better than the "solid oak" that comes from China.

I'm looking forward to seeing the rebuild of the locking mechanism.

 

[AES]

Just seen this thread.

Must say Sam, if you'd made such a piece from new you would have been worthy of high praise, but IMO (but lacking any knowledge in this area) there's something about bringing back an item from the dead AND even managing to improve it's looks without disturbing its originality that's even more praiseworthy.

It looks fantastic to me (would fit VERY well in our sitting room!) and is definitely worth very high praise. You're clearly another member who knows 'is onions, well done Sir. A fine example for a dumbo like me to aspire too (IF I manage to live long enough)!

=D> =D> =D>

AES

 

[MusicMan]

Looking very good! Very nice work on the handles.

Keith

 

[Yorkshire Sam]

Started replacing a few of the missing pieces of the desk. The rear modesty board has now been replaced. This was a simple panel that fitted between the pedestals and held in place by dowels. Adds quite a bit of rigidity to the desk even though its still not fully fitted together.

The next stage was to look at the inside of the drawers. On the right side pedestal the 2 upper drawers have 5 rebates for dividers. These rebates are set into the sides of the drawers and therefore must have been done at build. There are 5 dividers 2” inches apart leaving a 9” space at the rear and a 4” one at the front. Having replace one set in the top drawer I am trying to determine the thinking behind dividing the drawers thus. Because the drawers are 4 ½” deep the use of these dividers for storage of pens, instruments etc would seem a little awkward, so was it designed for something else? Perhaps some kind of card file system or index system.

The bottom (double drawer) is divided longitudinally, twice. Presumably for files or books and ledgers. Was this standard on all roll tops? I would be interested to discover what other roll tops had fitted. The left pedestal drawers have no division in what so ever, so it was seem obviously that these drawers were designed for something.

Been revisiting the drawer locking system again. Andy loaded a drawing for me which seemed obvious at the time, however when I have been doing some measurement I found that there is very little space between the back of the drawers and the back of the desk.
Certainly not enough to fit the rocking lever. It did have a levered cam fitted at the back and there is a rebate running down the side of the drawers in line with the cutouts. As far as I can work out when the tambour is opened it pushes down the lever and this raises something at the sides of the drawers... exactly what I have yet to work out.

 

[AndyT]

I agree that the deep, narrow divisions look awkward - maybe the design was for a single divider but with a choice of positions for it?

 

[AES]

+1 for Andy T's comment, OR could it have been simply storage for envelopes and what would now be called A5 paper, Compliments Slips, and such like "small" stuff?

That is only a (very) wild guess as I know absolutely nothing about such furniture.

But I DO very much admire the work you're doing Yorkshire Sam.

AES

 

[Yorkshire Sam]

Discovered some useful information on roll top desks on a antique web site forum that I occasionally visit. It would appear that while the actual desk layout was more or less standard, the drawers and the tills were often made to customers specifications. So there are many variations on the theme. It would also appear that when these desks were no longer being used in 'offices' and began to be moved into homes the locking system for the drawers were often removed as it became inconvenient to have to unlock the tambour every time you wanted to open a drawer! He added that it was quite uncommon to find a roll top still so fitted. I can see where that makes sense.
I have been trying (unsuccesfully) to find out the names of any makers of these roll tops, I can't imaging they were all made by small cabinetmakers when considering the numbers that are still out there. Does anyone have any information on these makers?